Tenebris stood very still, as if motion itself might betray the cracks splintering through his composure. The chamber was silent, heavy, a place where even the air seemed afraid to move. His voice came out as a thread of breath, meant for no one, yet impossible for anyone to miss.
"Then he lied," he whispered, staring at nothing and everything. The syllables trembled faintly, not from fear but from something older and far more exhausted. "The Princeps lied."
The words tasted strange on his tongue, like dust stirred from ancient stone. They rattled through him, shaking loose memories that had slept far too long. Images flickered behind his eyes, jittering like candle-flames in a storm: the moment of his reawakening, the echoing emptiness he found instead of the world he once knew, the faint smear of power still clinging to him like the last warmth of a dead fire.
One memory outshone the rest. It rose before him now, sharp and cold, a spike driven straight into his purpose.
